The Beginning

Once again, I have been totally enjoying my mission. The MTC was awesome, as always.
I met lots of great people, including the companion that will be with me my whole mission,
Hermana Mayberry (she’s on the far right), and of course I had to take some pictures
at the famous map :).

Hermana Mayberry is from Arizona and was born and raised in Guatamala. We are becoming very
good friends!

Also at the MTC we got to listen to Elder and Sister Gong speak, and even got to shake their hands.
Sister Gong told a  neat story about when she would visit the mission office in Hong Kong. Around
the corner was an older shopkeeper, whom everyone called “The Grumpy Old Woman who sells
fruit around the corner", and pretty much let her be. One day Christine joined the office missionaries,
and even though she didn't know Chinese, would smile at her every day. One day she was inspired
to bring some flowers to her for no real reason, and the fruit lady burst into tears, and from that
moment, even though they couldn't communicate, they became great friends. The message was
that we need to carry the good news of the gospel to EVERYONE, no matter their attitude.

Elder Gong spoke on the 200th anniversary of the First Vision (I had no idea that was coming up!
Next Spring!!!) He showed a moving time line of the dedication dates of all the temples.
What a great time we live in!

Speaking of which, we also got to visit the Provo Temple, which was beautiful, as always. 

I




I loved the beautiful flowers!

Back to the MTC - we had two different (college student) instructors, who were really good. Last time
I was in the MTC they had us pretend (and had others pretend) that they were investigators or
less active. This time they decided that the "deception" didn't invite the Spirit, and so we just taught
everyone where they were at in the gospel, the point being that it didn't matter how much people
know, everyone has room for growth, and we need to help people move forward from where they're
at now. I love that principle! Our great challenge came when we taught (as a companionship)
one of the volunteers from the community. She was in her 90's, worked at the temple, was great at
talking to people about the gospel, and we had a heck of a time figuring out anything she could do
to improve!

All in all, I had a great experience at the MTC. The food was great, the people even better, and the
Spirit just awesome. You all should try it out some time!